‘It was hot. Very hot.’

Tuesday

Nov 12, 2013 at 11:23 AM

Cynthia Grau

Seeking a way to pay for a college education turned into a lifelong military career for a Michigan man who found his way into the National Guard while living in Chenoa.Jim Grider, 43, first enlisted with the National Guard in Pontiac shortly before his 18th birthday in 1988, and rode out the career through 21 years in service, seeing action in Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s.After going through basic training, he started his college studies at Illinois State University in Normal. That ‘college experience’ wasn’t what he had expected and he quickly discovered he enjoyed military life much more.He went into active duty with the U.S. Army in October 1990, shortly after Saddam Hussein invaded the small nation of Kuwait, so he knew he would shortly spring into action.“By the time I went active in October, people were already going over there, so I kind of had an idea that I would be going,” Grider remembered. “I went to Germany, where I was going to be permanently stationed. That was for a couple months. We deployed in January 1991. We were right up on the Iraqi border, but I was only there two months.”In the short time he was there, where he was stationed with the infantry, he didn’t see much combat, besides the air shows of the SCUD missile attacks.“It was hot. Very hot,” he said. “We didn’t see much combat. The enemy had pretty much given up. The Air Force and the Navy started bombing about a month before we went in and we got down to the point where (the enemy) didn’t even want to fight. They were giving up to helicopters, like 10,000 soldiers giving up to helicopters.”Grider said he has great memories of his time stationed in Saudi Arabia. He says he still keeps in contact with many of the friends he made there, either through texting or Facebook.“We tried to keep the most of what we had,” Grider explained. “I like to laugh, so whenever we had a SCUD attack, we had to put our protective masks on. When we were in the chow hall, we had the masks on and we’d take pictures of us putting spoonfuls of corn up to our masks like we were eating.”After the war, he headed back to Germany in April 1991, and then was stationed in Fort Hood, Texas, beginning in July 1992. His military career did not end there.He said upon his return, he and his fellow soldiers were seen as the tough guys or big shots, mainly because they’d seen combat and others hadn’t. Grider said he had his combat patch and felt different from others. As he rose up in the ranks and achieved more authority, he received more and more respect, and he says people would approach him, asking about his time during Desert Storm.Grider stayed with the Army in the infantry until he began recruiting in 1997. Up until that point, he said they would “train, train, train” in preparation for the next time they were needed.He chose to continue his career with the Army because he saw it as a way to provide for his family. He had gotten married to his wife, Rebecca, and the pair was raising daughters Natalie, Megan and Ann Marie.“I knew it was putting a roof over our head, food in our bellies and shoes on our feet,” he said.He did two stints as a recruiter. He was in Iron Mountain, Mich., for three years, then went back to the infantry in Fort Hood, Texas.“I was there on Sept. 11, and we were preparing to fly anywhere in the world that day to chase down whomever flew planes into our buildings,” Grider said. “Then three months after that, the Army told me I was going back out to recruit.”Recruiting took him to many places, including Iron Mountain, Mich., Fort Hood, Texas, Moline, and Fort Knox, Ky.After the time he spent recruiting in Iron Mountain, Mich., he was contemplating getting out of the military, but took the advice of his father, and chose to finish the last ten years of his career so he could retire.That time to retire was after 21 years of service, at the age of 37, in 2007. After his retirement while at Fort Knox, Ky., the family of five relocated back to Iron Mountain, Mich. At the time of his retirement, Grider had achieved the rank of Sergeant First Class.Grider has learned many things from his years with the army, and has taken one valuable lesson. He said it has nothing to do with any of his training or the fact that he can hit a target at 300 yards, but it’s all about how to work with people.“I can get along with all kinds of people and I can motivate all kinds of people,” he explained. “The thing about being a squad leader in the infantry is even though I’m from Green Bay (Wis.), we have guys from all over the place and my job was to get them to come together as a team and work together. Each person having a different motivation for being there, a different level of value and all these factors that I have to get them to work together. That’s the biggest thing I took out of it.”Looking back on all his experiences, he says he wouldn’t change anything at all. “I’ve done a lot. I’ve done more than most and I’m very thankful for the opportunities that I’ve gotten. I’m thankful just to be alive,” Grider said. “I’ve been stabbed five times, shot once. I’m thankful for every opportunity that I’ve had because it’s been able to form me into the person that I am today, and I think that’s highly respectable.”As a recruiter, he is able to speak with many young men and women about a possible future with the military. He has the same basic story he relays to them.“It’s all about what you want to do. I can tell them all the stuff that I got out of it, and if you want to be like me, then that’s what you can go on. If you want to be you, what is it you want to do? Where do you want to be in five years and how are you going to get there? Don’t tell them to enlist because the uniforms look good. That’s pretty much what I tell them,” Grider said. “I can’t make the decision for them and I don’t want to make the decision for them. All I can do is guide them along their way.” Grider is the son of Danny and Connie Grider, Pontiac, and Frank and Patsy Hamby, Dallas, Ga.